Johnny Fontane

Johnny Fontane (1910-) was an American singer and actor who was known for his crooning and for his troubled Hollywood film career.

Biography
Johnny Fontane was born in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City, New York in 1910. He had a talent for singing from an early age, and his godfather Vito Corleone helped him with breaking into showbusiness. Fontane became known for his womanizing from an early point, leaving his wife for promiscuous Hollywood actress Margot Ashton, dishonoring his family and angering Don Corleone. However, Corleone helped Fontane in escaping from his contract with bandleader Les Halley, and Fontane decided to become an actor after he began to develop throat problems which impeded his singing. He angered producer Jack Woltz by making off with one of his mistresses, and Fontane used his connections with Don Corleone to ensure that he would appear in Woltz's big-budget war film in 1945. Fontane won the Academy Award for this movie, but his career began to drift in the 1950s, and a third marriage failed. He became Grand Marshall of the Columbus Day Parade in New York, however, and he played Christopher Columbus in a blockbuster film. He repaired his relations with Vito's son Michael Corleone, singing at Corleone's award ceremony in 1979.